Month: January 2009

About 800 outdoors workers in Tasmania are diagnosed with skin cancer each year and people in the Construction Industry are particularly vulnerable, says the Tasmanian Cancer Council. This week the council launched an education program to create sun safe workplaces. The initiative has been developed in conjunction with the Tasmanian Building and Construction Industry Training Board, Work Cover Tasmania …

With south-eastern Australia in the grip of a brutal heatwave, WorkSafe Victoria urged bosses and employers in all types of businesses to take the extreme heat into consideration. ‘As the hot days and nights continue, employers and supervisors will need to consider this to be an added hazard to build into their planning,’ said WorkSafe chief …

Source: The Examiner About 800 outdoors workers in Tasmania are diagnosed with skin cancer each year and people in the Construction Industry are particularly vulnerable, says the Tasmanian Cancer Council. The council today launched the first industry-wide education program to create Sun Safe Workplaces. The initiative has been developed in conjunction with the Tasmanian Building and Construction Industry …

Source: ABC News WorkSafe is investigating the death of a man in an Industrial Accident at Finucane Island on the Pilbara coast of north-west Western Australia. The fly-in, fly-out worker from Queensland died in Port Hedland yesterday morning. Police say it appears he was struck by a piece of metal that Fell From A Crane. The 53-year-old crane …

Source: ABC News The Manjimup Shire will give part of its Royalties for Regions funding to four farmers to help upgrade the local saleyard. The four farmers bought the mothballed yards last year and have since spent about $500,000 upgrading them. They were closed by the former owners Elders and Landmark in 2007, after WorkSafe Declared Them …

Source: ABC News Police are still searching for a group of men responsible for a Violent Robbery at the Brooklyn Park Post Office in Adelaide’s western suburbs. A 25-year-old man from Kidman Park was hit with the butt of a shotgun during the robbery and is being treated at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. The four robbers escaped …

Source: News.com.au There’s a new culprit in the battle of the bulge: your job. Workers in almost every sector are spilling out of their seats. Seventy-six per cent of Mining Workers, 63 per cent of Transport Workers and 60 per cent of managers are overweight, according to Australian Bureau Of Statistics Data. In one case, a miner, who weighed …

Source: The Standard The ramps on a Low-Loading Trailer that killed Terang man Doug Templeton in June 2007 had fallen on one of his senior co-workers more than two years earlier, a Warrnambool coroner has heard. Mr Templeton, 43, was killed at a quarry in Ecklin South as he prepared to Load A Bulldozer Onto A Semi-Trailer Machinery …

Source: The Daily Telegraph A Driver Has Died after a plank of wood flew off another motorist’s trailer and pierced the windscreen of his car. The man suffered facial fractures and chest injuries and died in a Melbourne hospital shortly after the crash at Doncaster about 9am (AEDT) today. The plank went through the victim’s windscreen …

Source: The Courier Country Victoria recorded more than half of the state’s work-related deaths last year, new figures show. The figures, released by WorkSafe Victoria, showed 21 People Died At Work during 2008. Of the deaths, 11 occurred in regional areas. They do not include fatalities involving people on Non-Commercial Rural Properties Using Farm Equipment. The first five …

Source: Manufactures Monthly The Australian Safety and Compensation Council (ASCC) today released a research report on The Occupational Health And Safety (OHS) implications of accurate data for the design of Australian workplaces. The accuracy of anthropometric data is an emerging issue that is a focus of research for the ASCC. ASCC Chairman, Mr Bill Scales AO, commented …

Source: Perth Now More than 100 container trucks are Transporting Dangerous Chemicals from Fremantle along Perth highways every weekday. Figures obtained by The Sunday Times from Fremantle Ports show about 2600 containers are being moved in or out of the port by truck from 6am to 6pm, Monday to Friday. Up to 5 per cent – or 130 – of …

Source: Geelong Advertiser A 27-year-old Powercor worker remains in hospital following Thursday’s High-Voltage Electrical Explosion at Waurn Ponds. Police said two Powercor workers were attempting to reconnect two lines to a powerline on Hams Rd when an explosion occurred about 2.30pm. One of the men suffered burns to his face and the other received chest burns. The …

Source: Geelong Advertiser Jenny Lourie is quite happy planning for things she hopes never happen. Ms Lourie is senior process safety engineer at Shell’s Geelong refinery. One part of her job is to come up with contingency Plans For When Things Go Wrong. Proudly, she says, that is rare. The Lovely Banks engineer recently accepted an award …

A man has been killed working with heavy equipment at a metal recycling factory. WorkSafe Victoria is investigating a fatality this week where a 13-tonne bailing unit fell on a worker while he was installing a metal bailing machine. One piece of the machine had been installed and the workers were using cranes to lower the second part into place. A guidance rope …

State government authorities covered up an accident last year at a water recycling plant near Brisbane in which more than 500,000 litres of Industrial and Hospital Waste Water Were Spilled. The spill at the Bundamba Advanced Water Treatment Plant near Ipswich last July resulted in a report to the state Environmental Protection Agency. In November, the Bligh …

Two linesmen received Electric Shocks and were badly burned while working at Geelong this yesterday afternoon. They are in a stable condition in hospital. WorkSafe Victoria’s Eric Windholz said the men had been fixing a high voltage cable at Waurn Ponds when there was an explosion. “We’ve got inspectors at the scene right now doing thorough …

Toni Lynch says she was one of Stuart Ramsey’s most conscientious workers, but it wasn’t enough to stop her from being sacked. Ms Lynch was one of a number of workers sacked from the Grafton abattoir just before Christmas. Like many workers at the abattoir, Ms Lynch Suffered A Few Injuries During Her Employment at Ramsey …

A worker has died after an early-morning Industrial Accident in Canberra. The 57-year-old man was operating a vehicle-loading Crane attached to the back of a truck behind shops in suburban Evatt about 4.50am (AEDT) today. Initial investigations indicate the man was crushed by the arm of the crane as he was using it to load a hopper …

WorkSafe is investigating the death of a 29-year-old Cleaning Supervisor at the Malaga Markets yesterday morning, who appeared to have been electrocuted. WorkSafe said the man was believed to have been checking a dishwasher that was malfunctioning when The Electrocution took place. Inspectors from EnergySafety attended the site yesterday and WorkSafe said its inspectors will continue investigating …

The Construction and utilities sector will be a major focus of WorkSafe’s activity in 2009 after it recorded nearly half of the state’s traumatic work-related deaths last year. There were four deaths in the building construction sector, two deaths in utilities (linesmen) and one each in road works and non-building construction. With the bulk of the Construction …